Officially open for business...Wish Me Luck

[Neal Lewis]

Today is Opening Day for my new company, Total Home Inspection Services. I had to leave my previous employer, USInspect, after a huge reduction in earnings due to the market downturn. And what do they do when you bring in less money? Cut your commission rate, of course!

Now I only have to manage to get along with my business partner, which seems like it's akin to being married!

I've doing this inspecting thing since 1986; it's about time I took a risk and took control of my future.

And BTW, I'm not going to lowball prices; we are a top notch and top dollar company. Our prices can be as much as $200 more than the low ballers.

[:-party]

[hausdok]

Hi Neal,

Wow, you've been at this gig as an employee working for someone else for 20 years? That's pretty unusual. Typically, what I've seen is that the folks working for the big companies start off as independent operators, find out they'd rather not have to deal with all of the crap that goes along with actually owning a business and then they sign on with one of those large companies.

If I can offer some advice, it would be to go over to the IRS website and take some of their online courses, so you can become intimately familiar with what you'll need to be doing taxwise, then I'd take some free online courses at the Small Business Administration website and lastly I'd sign up for some of Ellen Rohr's Bare Bones Business offerings over at the Bare Bones Business website.

Congratulations on becoming a business owner and good luck!

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Scottpat]

Good for you! I have been self-employed for about 16 years and have never looked back; well I have kind of glanced over my shoulder now and then when it slows down but I would have a real hard time working for someone other than myself. You will enjoy it.

[Chad Fabry]

I've been self employed my whole life. I've never had a job.

The boss is a jerk, the pay sucks, there are no benefits, vacations are rare and the company car is piece of crap. I wouldn't trade it for a job with twice as much of everything.

Good luck to you, Neal. You're already a technician...learn the business end now so you don't go broke -not after you go broke.

[kurt]

This has hung on the wall of my office over my computer monitor for the last 20 years.

Download Attachment: damn.JPG

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Congratulations, oh my brutha.

[Neal Lewis]

Thanks for the advice, guys. I have endured the ups and downs of this crazy business, to the point where I had to apply for unemployment, twice. I guess there's just something about this business that makes me stick with it.

I definitely have a lot to learn about the business end. Mike, I will check out the links.

[Erby]

Good Luck, Neal. Hang in there with T.H.I.S.

Get your own easy website name.

Get it up and running.

Gives you something to let those undecided people check you out now and know more about you than you can convey in a phone call.

I get a lot of those calling me back after they check the site.

Keep T.H.I.S. going. I wish you well.

[ozofprev]

Best of luck, Neal!

If your boss is half the jerk Chad's is, you should be fine.

[randynavarro]

Now THIS is just what they talk about when going after the American Dream!

If you can't hack THIS, then get out, while the gettin's good.

THIS should be something interesting to watch.

Not the wordsmith expert as others, but I think its a cool name!

Best to you!!!

[chicago]

Yes congratulations Neal as today just happens to be the day I left my safety net at Comcast in order to give it a go.

Also out of coincidence just finished sending an E-Mail to a franchise owner whom shall remain nameless.The guy tells me 75% of home inspection is done by franchises.

Is this true?

I hope not.

[charlieb]

I doubt that fact. I imagine they take a large market share in the major metro areas but not as a whole.

In my market the franchises equal the market share I and the other multi inspector companies have and there are a fair number of 1 man shows. Several do a good business but most are part time at best.

[hausdok]

Hi,

I was with one of the major franchise players for about 4 years and 7 months. I'm in Seattle and this is a major metropolitan area. We had a lot of franchisees working this area and folks thought we were one company. The company's market share target was 30% of everything in the Seattle/Puget Sound area.

Though I left them 6 years ago, I still don't think they've achieved that and they've got a really strong handle on this market.

Last time I counted, there were over 150 inspection companies working this region. I think I heard that there were something like 12 - 13000 closings in King County last year. Okay, let's be conservative and call it 12,000. If we spread it out equally among 150 inspection companies, that's about 80 per company per year (Whoops, looks like I'm taking an unequal share!).

Say there's about 30 franchisees from various franchises working the area - that means at 75% they'd be doing about 9,000 of those or 300 inspections each per year (Whoops, looks like when I was a franchisee I was taking more than my allotted share too.).

The other 130 of us would be left with 3,000 and doing 23 a year if we shared them equally. (???) Yeah,.....riiiiiiiggghhhhht! I'd say that guy's math is worse than mine and that's pretty friggin bad, I sh*t you not.

Ask him how much he wants to sell you the Sears tower and is he prepared to close by next Friday. I've got about $10 to invest and would like a piece of the action. I'll take two floors.

(Sorry for contributing to the thread drift, Neal.)

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike